


With the Soul of the Sea

by reine_des_corbeaux



Series: The Strangeness of Your Eyes [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Boat Sex, Cunnilingus, Dubious Consent, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied pre-Jon/Martin, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Petra’s been watching Martin all through dinner as though she is the meal, and not the food on the table.Petra Lukas invites Martin onto the Lukas family's yacht for the evening.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas
Series: The Strangeness of Your Eyes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956676
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	With the Soul of the Sea

Two hours into the evening, Martin's starting to think that she might actually like life as Petra Lukas’s assistant. At the very least, it’s a welcome respite from the rest of her days, which are an anxious spiral of dealing with the aftermath of her father’s death and making time for visits to Jon’s hospital bedside before returning to her tiny flat to fall into an uneasy sleep. Martin spends her days at work busy and isolated. She spends her time away from work equally alone, making calls or talking to the empty air as though Jon can really hear her. But tonight, Martin sits on a yacht that probably cost more money than Martin will ever make in a lifetime, eating a delicious meal with her weird boss. Life could be worse. 

_I deserve nice things_ , Martin tells herself as she takes a bite of some kind of delicately cooked fish. _I deserve nice things, and I don’t really like Petra, but she seems to think I deserve them too._ The fish practically melts on her tongue, salty and rich, with a hint of fruit from the sauce. It might just be the best thing she’s ever tasted, and she takes a sip of the white wine in her glass, lets the dry flavours bloom across her tongue. This, Martin thinks, is probably what heaven feels like, although she’d probably change a few things. In heaven, she’d be having dinner on dry land, looking out at the sea, with someone besides Petra Lukas. But even so, she can’t complain too much about being wined and dined on this palace of a boat. 

“Are you liking the fish?” Petra asks, just as Martin puts another bite into her mouth. 

Martin chews and swallows, because she has _manners, thank you very much_. She tries not to think of her father glaring over the table at her for some perceived behavioral slight as Petra sips her wine and studies Martin’s face. 

“It’s delicious,” Martin says. She blunders on afterwards, afraid of seeming hopelessly ungrateful. “Thank you for inviting me.” 

“Anything for my favorite assistant.” Petra smiles. Her teeth are very white and very large, and her weak blue eyes glitter with something that could be mirth as she takes another bite of fish. 

They continue on in that vein for some while, but Petra’s small talk abilities leave something to be desired, and it’s hard to get much mileage out of such scintillating topics as “why are you never in the office?” and “why are you so nice to me? It’s kind of creeping me out.” Martin thinks she’s doing a decent job, but it’s hard to know. She’s not used to spaces and places like Petra’s yacht, and she’s certainly not used to drinking wine that probably cost more than her monthly rent. Even so, Martin smiles and nods and scrupulously resists the urge to polish her glasses on her shirt out of nervous habit. 

By the time dessert is served by a silent servant, Petra has got off the subject of Institute-related platitudes and occasional comments about Elise Bouchard being a sore loser and onto the subject of Martin herself. Martin nibbles at the rich chocolate torte in front of her, and tries to deflect Petra’s questions about how she’s faring now that her father’s dead. Because Martin really isn’t. She’s not coping with Tim’s death, or Daisy’s, or her father’s. Grief has numbed her into something not entirely like herself, as if she’s packed away the Martin Blackwood who used to exist along with her brightly coloured jumpers and snipped that Martin’s hopes and dreams away along with her overgrown curls. Martin takes another bite of the chocolate torte, and it melts heavy and bitter across her tongue. She washes it away with another sip of wine, the buzz of the alcohol drowning out the fog of grief. 

“Well,” Petra says at last, as Martin stares down at her empty plate, unsure of what to say or do, “would you like a tour of the yacht? No sense leaving you to get lost on here-- you might never find your way out!” 

She laughs, and Martin stiffens. 

“Uh, yeah!” Martin replies. _You might never find your way out_ rings in her ears even as she speaks. 

The boat really is beautiful, she thinks, walking out of the glorious dining room with its grand windows displaying the darkening sea and into another spacious chamber. All the lines here are at once sinuous and precise, modern elegance tuned up to a level that Martin finds almost insufferably ostentatious even as her feet echo across the dark, shining floor. This is a boat, she thinks, for parties and people, a place that should echo with the clink of glasses and soft, murmuring voices. The silence sits across the empty room like a heavy weight. 

“I would show you around the deck, but I think it’s a little too cold out there,” Petra said, waving to the windows. 

Outside, the sea is steel-coloured, and above it, the sky purples like a bruise. Martin’s a city girl at heart, and she’s never been good at telling the weather from the sky alone. Even so, she cannot help but think of storms, and the yacht, for all its grandeur, suddenly seems very small, and very fragile. No wonder Petra likes the sea-- how can you be anything but lonely when surrounded by a vast expanse of deep water, trapped in a flimsy structure with only your own thoughts? Martin chews on her lower lip as she looks hastily down to the floor again. 

There’s no reason for Petra to bring Martin here, onto this beautiful, empty, echoing boat unless she wants something from her, but that is the problem with Petra. She usually wants something from Martin, and she seems to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of only telling Martin bits of what she needs to know. This seems rather like all of Petra’s cryptic pronouncements at the Institute. It’s yet another cheerful way to mess with Martin’s mind, and out here, alone, Martin’s not sure what she can do to keep herself together. 

“I think we’ve seen enough here,” Petra says at last, placing a hand on Martin’s shoulder. Martin jumps. 

Petra’s hands are big and cold, even through Martin’s clothing, and she’s never got used to Petra’s fondness for touching her. But now, at least, she knows what to expect, and she tilts her head towards Petra. Another kiss, she supposes, already expecting Petra to press her against the shining window and kiss her breathless. Maybe Martin wants this. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s had too much to drink and it’s muddled all her desires. But Petra only looks down at her and chuckles. 

“What?” Martin asks, feeling far more irritated than she has any cause to. 

“Nothing.” Petra chuckles again. 

Their feet echo as they leave the room, and the lights dim behind them, perhaps on a motion sensor. The little hallway off the large and echoing empty space is streamlined here too, all its light gleaming with a cold glow that only serves to emphasise Petra’s pallor. Perhaps it is only Martin’s mind playing tricks on her, but Petra’s hand on her shoulder feels colder too. She shivers, and thinks she can smell the salt of the sea even in this sealed little hallway as they come to a closed door. Before Martin can truly trust her instincts and ask to return to the dining room where they ate, Petra pushes the door open, sending a beam of light into the corridor. 

Petra leads Martin into a spacious cabin dominated by a truly ludicrous bed. Like the rest of the yacht, all the lines here are sleek and spare; speed and efficiency and the vague suggestion of waves and water, the colours all creams and dove greys and dark blues. More or less, Martin realizes, the colors all her new clothes have been in. Her stomach sinks. 

She’s been expecting that sooner or later Petra would do something like this, ever since the kiss before the mirror and the kisses since then, always pressed to her lips with the barest of touches. Petra likes to walk in when Martin’s working and tilt Martin’s chin up so her lips are easier to reach. But it’s always only kissing, or a squeeze to the shoulder that lingers too long, and Petra’s never pushed the matter farther. But Martin’s seen her looking. And Petra’s been watching Martin all through dinner as though she is the meal, and not the food on the table. 

“Now then,” Petra says, “I think you’re going to like this part of the evening.” 

Martin will, of course, in the way she’s liked the suits, and the new haircut, and the promotion. Everything will be lovely, and it will also gnaw away at her, reaching down to the little core of her being that’s still eight years old and watching her mother walk out of her life forever. She wants, suddenly and very strongly, to get off the yacht, to send someone an SOS text. It was always Tim in the past, and Martin remembers any number of messages she sent Tim’s way, begging her to come rescue her from failed dates. But Tim’s dead now, and Sasha too, and Jon’s lying in her hospital bed unliving and too pale, like one of the wax figures out of the ruins they pulled her body from. Martin’s throat tightens up, and it’s a struggle to force the words out. 

“What do you want me to do?” she asks Petra. It feels like she’s always asking Petra that. 

Petra smiles, a smug, delighted smile. 

“You can start by taking your clothes off.” 

Martin does, and Petra makes no move to help, simply watching appreciatively as Martin pulls off her shoes, then her trousers. She folds each article of clothing as she goes, half out of habit, half out of self-consciousness. It’ll slow down the way the room seems to reel and spin, and maybe it will make the strange, sudden desire welling up in her go away. She’s dying to be touched, Martin realizes. How long has it been? How many months has she spent drifting through life without satiating this pure, primal need for contact? She struggles with her tie and her shirt buttons, and all the while she aches. 

Soon, the clothes lie in a neat pile beside her, her glasses are folded up and placed on the little table by the bed, and she’s standing naked and too exposed in the chilly air of the cabin. The boat tips and rocks beneath her as her center of gravity shifts, and Martin feels an intense need to curl up and hide, to cover her body from Petra’s staring eyes. Out of a lack of anything else to do, she hugs her arms over her chest, hiding her breasts from view and trying to bring some futile warmth back into her body, to stave away the sea chill that permeates every inch of the space. 

Petra clicks her tongue, sounding vaguely disappointed. 

“Really, Martin, what is the point of all this if you’re going to try and hide yourself?” 

Martin flushes scarlet, and she’s not sure if it’s with rage or with embarrassment. Even so, her arms drop to her sides, where they hang limply, goose-pimpled and shaking slightly. She’s fully exposed now to Petra’s evaluating glance, and Martin feels it lingering across her body, glancing from her face to her breasts to the curve of her belly and the patch of reddish hair between her legs. Every moment feels like an eternity under Petra’s gaze. 

“I’m cold,” Martin says at last. Her tongue feels heavy, sluggish in her mouth. 

“Well, we can’t have that.” Petra pats the bed. “Up you go.” 

Martin is of the opinion that there’s no graceful way to climb onto a bed, at least not for her. She feels utterly exposed in the room’s bright light, without the shielding of her clothing to keep her safe. What is she to Petra without the suits, without being the assistant she’s been molded to be? She’s just plain Martin Blackwood, frumpy, flabby secondary school dropout Martin Blackwood, who doesn’t know how to arrange herself fetchingly for the woman who wants to fuck her. She crawls onto the bed, and sits somewhere near the pillows, drawing her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself again. Petra shakes her head and clucks her tongue, and Martin again unwinds just as the boat hits a bump that sends her sprawling back into the pillows. She yelps, too loudly, and Petra chuckles. 

“Oh, you’re too perfect,” she says with a fondness that makes Martin shiver with a strangely pleasant nausea. “Sit up a little more, and I can take good care of you.” 

“Really?” Martin asks, dripping incredulity. 

“Haven’t I already?” 

The bed dips as Petra sits down next to Martin, rolling up her shirtsleeves as she goes. She’s got strong, broad arms, and just looking at them makes Martin’s mouth water a little, sends her fantasizing about being smothered and pressed into a mattress by someone who knows exactly what she’s doing and has no intention of letting her go. God, she wants to be touched so badly that she can practically hear herself crying out for it, wanting Petra’s hands all over her so she doesn’t have to think of anything, and can, for an evening at least, stop mourning Tim, and Jon, and Daisy, and Sasha, and her father, and all the other people who’ve ever left her alone. 

“Please,” she whispers, and it sounds ragged. 

Petra leans over Martin, and runs one of her large hands through Martin’s short curls, never quite touching her scalp, even if Martin finds herself almost involuntarily leaning towards Petra’s touch. 

“Please what?” 

“Please touch me,” Martin says, letting her eyes flutter shut for a second, and then Petra’s kissing her. 

It’s open-mouthed, and sloppy, and Petra tastes of the wine they drank with dinner, and something darker, headier, and more of the sea. Martin can’t get enough of it, even if there’s a small part of her that wants to bang her fists on the wall and scream that she wants off the yacht now. She’s being touched again at last, and that’s enough to override any residual bit of self-preservation left within her. Petra’s tongue is in her mouth, and Petra’s hands are working their way down her back, repositioning Martin against the thick, down cushions of the bed. Martin sinks into them as though she’s sinking into a dream, and Petra moves her hands lower still as she kisses down Martin’s neck, sucking painful bruises into her flesh. 

For a moment, as Petra lifts her mouth from Martin’s collarbone, Martin gets her bearings, the fog of arousal and need clearing from her brain. _There’s definitely something wrong with this situation_ , she thinks, a little panicked, a little frightened, and then Petra’s drawing loose circles with her tongue around one of Martin’s nipples and Martin’s never felt quite so alive with sensation as she gasps, and then, all too soon, Petra’s pulling away. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Petra asks sweetly. 

Martin nods, her tongue still feeling alien to her, her voice locked up in her throat. 

“Yeah,” she manages to say, and Petra smiles without warmth as she runs a hand over the curve of Martin’s stomach, caressing it gently yet firmly. Her hands are cool, and Martin wishes they could cover her entirely, because the cabin suddenly feels very small and very warm as Petra pushes Martin’s legs apart. She kneels there for a moment, between Martin’s legs, smiling down at her, and Martin squints, the cabin going blurry without her glasses, and maybe with the wine. 

Petra inspects her, and judging by her smile, seems to like what she sees as she trails her fingers through Martin’s pubic hair and then lets them dip lower, pressing Martin’s folds ever so slightly open, then lifting her fingers. Martin cants her hips up, trying to follow the pressure. Her breathing is already becoming heavy and a little irregular, and it becomes even more so when Petra presses her back down to the mattress with a firm hand. 

“Oh, you poor desperate slut,” she says. “All wet for me already. How long has it been since anyone touched you?” 

Martin’s ashamed to admit that she doesn’t know. Her sex life, which has never been particularly impressive, dwindled to a trickle after the worm incident (and the full development of her feelings for Jon), and she can’t remember the last time she actually bothered to download a dating app and attempt to flirt with someone, let alone actually meet up with anyone. She’s single and lonely and touch-starved and pining for a woman in a medically anomalous coma, and Martin’s pretty sure Petra loves all of that. So she doesn’t say anything, even though what she really wants to do is tell Petra to fuck off. 

Petra surprises her by lowering her body towards the mattress and laying a light kiss on the very apex of Martin’s cunt. To Martin, so long untouched by anyone but herself, it feels obscenely intimate, and Petra’s lips, for all that they are cool, are still warmer than the air. She squirms, and her mind clears long enough for her to find something to say. 

“Thought you’d be more of the strap-on type.” 

Martin flushes immediately after the words leave her mouth. It was stupid, she thinks, to say that. Stupid and cutting and probably incredibly rude. She looks up to the ceiling, the modernist light fixtures, the bare expanse of white above her, and tries to imagine herself anywhere else. But Petra only laughs, and Martin cranes her neck forward to look at her. Even without her glasses, Martin can tell that Petra’s smile is utterly filthy. 

“Oh, I can be, sweet thing,” she says, and leans back down. 

For all that she is the perfect incarnation of loneliness and a servant of the Forsaken, Petra seems to know very well what to do with another person’s body to make her gasp and arch and cry. Her fingers lovingly dance across Martin’s folds, parting her outer lips to open her more fully to Petra’s mouth. Petra’s fingers are impossibly cold, so much so that they feel almost as though they burn, and Martin can’t keep herself from gasping. She feels impossibly teenage in this state of desperate lust, but maybe that’s the lack of touch talking, the desperation coiling within her as Petra’s chilly fingers gently spread her open. 

When Petra brings her mouth to Martin’s cunt, Martin makes a small, surprised noise, the kind of sound she’s completely surprised to hear coming from her own mouth. It’s just a kiss, at first, Petra’s lips pressed gently against Martin, but then, her tongue starts to do its work, lapping delicately around Martin’s clit, and Martin can only squirm. It all feels good, too good, and too much after so long alone. For all that Martin’s touched herself during long, lonely nights and brought herself off on lazy, listless Saturdays, the pleasure Petra’s mouth brings to her is something else entirely. Where her fingers were cold, her lips are warm, and Martin presses herself towards Petra’s tongue as it darts across Martin’s clit and down further along the length of her cunt. 

Petra’s tongue dips inside Martin, and Martin whimpers a little, the intrusion sudden and unexpected, yet feeling so unutterably good that she can’t help herself. She grinds down onto Petra’s roving tongue, aching with sensation, only for Petra to withdraw. Martin lets out another sharp little sound, again arching towards Petra’s mouth, and this time, almost magnanimously, Petra bestows a long, enveloping kiss to Martin’s clit. She goes on in this vein for some time, all darting tongue and firm pressure, lavishing affection on Martin’s body in a way that drives all thoughts from Martin’s mind. She stares at the ceiling, barely feeling the rocking of the boat, and for a moment, all is well. There’s nothing in Martin’s mind but want and aching pleasure, and for a moment, she doesn’t think of Jon, or of all the things she could have done differently. Her world shrinks down to Petra’s lips around her clit, Petra’s tongue tracing along her folds, the empty ache of her cunt. Martin arches into the cushions on the bed and her breath comes heavy and harsh. 

Petra lavishes one more firm lick across and around Martin’s clit, and it’s enough to send her legs twitching, her toes curling. Martin lets out a wail of a moan, the sound humiliatingly loud, though no one’s there to hear it except Petra, her face still buried in Martin’s cunt. Her tongue is insistent against Martin, and Martin’s pleasure crests over her like a wave, nearly painful, bowling her over like a tiny boat adrift at sea. She squeezes her eyes shut, and shakes and sobs through her orgasm, tears prickling at the edges of her eyelids, cunt spasming helplessly around nothing. 

For a moment, or perhaps for many minutes, Martin lies insensate on the bed, still twitching, eyes still closed and hot with tears. She comes back to herself slowly, slick, splayed, and confused, her whole body feeling hollowed by the tearing force of pleasure. As she opens her eyes to the white ceiling and the too-bright lights, the cabin seems suddenly too cold. A kind of foggy stillness envelops Martin and she looks blearily about her into the blurry space. And then, there’s a shadow in her vision, and Petra’s strong arms enfold her and bring them chest to chest. Martin wriggles closer to Petra’s clothed form as Petra leans down to kiss her. She tastes herself on Petra’s lips for a moment, and then Petra releases Martin from her grasp, smiling, her chin shining with Martin’s fluids, looking as pleased with herself as always. Martin flops against the pillows in a tangle of uncoordinated, shaky limbs. 

“You know, Martin,” Petra says in a pleasant, chipper voice, “I had a bet with Elise that I could get one of you lovely, lovely archival assistants into bed with me in no time if I were ever to run things at the Institute. And now, I do believe I’ve won that particular bet.” 

“Was I just a bet then?” Martin’s voice comes out sharper than she thought possible, but still breathy from the afterglow. 

“Oh, no. I’m glad it was you.” Petra smiles obscenely, wiping her face, pausing to suck the moisture from her fingers. “You make a fetching servant of Forsaken. And was there really a choice? I’d love to see your frigid little Archivist all yowling and desperate in my bed, but I doubt she’d let me get very far before she flayed me with that fiery tongue of hers. You’re much better. There’s a certain amount of directability necessary to have a good time, after all.” 

She licks her lips again, and casts a lascivious gaze over Martin’s naked body, from her sweaty, disheveled hair and reddened face to her spread legs and still-sloppy cunt. Martin wants to pull her legs together, retreat into herself, feel less like meat cast before a starving animal. She wonders idly if Elise is watching from her prison cell, and if she wears an expression that matches Petra’s on her face. 

The emptiness building inside Martin twists painfully in her gut, twining with exhaustion with Petra’s words. Martin, who thought she was special for once in her life only hours before, might have been right about herself all along. She’s a convenient fuck for Petra, molded to her needs. The world’s still ending, Jon still lies in hospital, and Martin prickles with shame as she thinks of Petra’s words. _I’d love to see your frigid little Archivist all yowling and desperate in my bed._ A thought springs unbidden to her mind: Jon glassy-eyed and stoic as Petra shoves her down. Would she fall apart like Martin in the same situation, or would her self-worth keep her from throwing herself gladly into the arms of a monster? 

“Is that all?” Martin asks at last, more to distract herself from her racing thoughts than anything else. The words are painfully lodged in her throat, and wrenching them out is a struggle. She’s so tired, sleepy with the aftermath of orgasm and a good meal, and the bed is so soft and welcoming. 

Petra smiles down at Martin, and this time Martin thinks she sees a trace of mocking pity in her eyes, though Martin’s vision blurs without her glasses. The boat sways gently beneath them, and Martin thinks they must be very far from shore. 

“Oh, no,” Petra says, beginning to unbutton her shirt. “You see, I haven’t come yet, and I really don’t think that’s fair, do you? And I think I’d like to make you come a few more times tonight, at least. I’m sure your screams sound lovely when there’s no one else around to hear them. Now, I do believe you said something about a strap-on…” 

She turns away, and Martin lets out a soft, whimpery sigh. She turns her head, listening for the soft thrum of the engines, and looks out to the water. Here, somewhere in the sea, there are no lights save their own, and the stars are dimmed beneath clouds. And beyond the portals, the water itself looks very black, and very cold. 

**Author's Note:**

> ...the working title for this fic was "The One in Which Martin is Dessert."  
> Chronologically in this AU, it takes place sometime after "A Certain Minor Light". 
> 
> Thank you to peevee for the britpicking! 
> 
> Title from Renée Vivien's "À Venise".


End file.
